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PC slave build, looking for feedback

Conor

(aka Conor Brace Music)
About to build a new slave PC. It's been a while, so I'd really appreciate if some more experienced builders than I could take a quick look at my parts list:
https://pcpartpicker.com/list/6YWWr7

The goal is a fairly beefy VE Pro slave to handle heavy orchestra libraries like the Berlin series. Budget is <$2,000, right now this list is a little under $1,700 so there's some wiggle room if any upgrades are required. Otherwise I'll save the money for future expansion - 128GB RAM maybe? :)

Some questions:
1) Is the new Asrock "Taichi" motherboard all right? Its features seem on par with the "Extreme6" which I think is well-liked around here, but it's $80 cheaper which makes me worry I'm missing something.

2) Is everything here OK from an audio / latency / sample-streaming perspective? Any obvious bottlenecks?

3) Should I be going for 2.5" SATA SSDs, or M.2 SSDs?

Thanks in advance!
 
If it's not gonna be in a different room then I'd suggest replacing the case fans with Noctua as well as the CPU cooler with the Noctua one. The power supply can also be really loud. I suggest getting a Corsair RM series. My power usage is below a certain amount so the fan doesn't even spin on mine. The only thing that makes noise in my computer is the Intel stock CPU cooler as the Noctua wouldn't fit in my case.

A lot of the things on motherboards is pretty useless for us and can hinder audio performance so you shouldn't really be worried about getting a cheaper one.

Many of the M.2 SSD's perform the same as sata ones so unless you can get one that actually uses the port to it's full potential I'd leave the port free for future expansion.
 
Althugh it is true that most SSDs are pretty similar there is one that stands head and shoulders above the rest - Samsung 960 M2's which are just about to drop on line over Xmas - these are the fastest on the planet by a factor of 5 or even more. Read speeds for HHDs come in between 100-250 mbps, standard SSDs about the 500 mark, but the 960 are at 3600 - that's right 3.5 gig! PER SECOND. If this were a sample drive you could also shorten the size of the headers in Kontakt/ options with such a drive. They will be the future, very soon there will be an EVO 960 M2, this will be the second fasted consumer SSD on the planet and will be significantly more affordable.

Also, why not have three drives = one for samples, one for operating system and one for your projects. This way your system does not have to write to the same drives. You only need a small SSD for project files, in fact you really only need room to write new projects and can archive old ones anywhere.
 
Thank you both!

The machine will actually be in another room, but for the sake of future-proofing, I'll take a look at quieter fans and PSU anyway.

That's awesome news about the Samsung 960 drives! I'll probably get a smaller SSD to start with, just enough to meet my immediate needs, and then look into upgrading in January.

Any other suggestions / potential problems?
 
Why would you need a 750W PSU for a machine that barely uses ~300W?

If you want silence and performance, get a Noctua NH-D14/15. However, 212 EVO is fine as well. I have a Asrock X99 Extreme6 which I picked after quite a bit of research, so I can definitely recommend it. Extreme4 is great as well.

I'd get something like this or this.
 
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